My New Bike

I'm sure you have all heard the saying "Getting there is half the fun". Well I am sure that whoever said that was definitely not going anywhere in a suburban with his whole family. I have also decided that whoever said it had a motorcycle.

This is my bike. It is a 2005 Honda Shadow 750cc. You can see the saddlebags and the two seats. Cassie is still to chicken to let me take her for a ride. Maybe in the summer when it warms up.

Here I am sitting on my bike with my new helmet and motorcycle jacket. (A quick note to appease my mother) The jacket has reflective stripes, foam padding and body armor, so if I wreck on the freeway both arms will be dislocated, several ribs will be broken and my spleen may rupture, but my skin will stay on my bones. No worries.

Lastly, it may not be snowing but at 6:00 in the morning when I leave for school, it's cold outside. Factor in the windchill and even I need a little extra covering. My jacket has an extra liner, I wear a scarf, and I just bought some new Gore-tex ski gloves, the only thing I am missing are a pair of sexy chaps.

Ma & Pa cont'd

Sorry the last round of pictures took up too much space so this will have to be a two part post. Here we all are on the way home. Oh how I love the subway (not really it always feels like I'm going to school.)

On Monday we took Mom and Dad to the temple. Since it was Labor Day and 95% of the people out here are 9-5ers the temple was open so that those who did not have to work could go. I have never seen so many people at the temple here. That is not saying too much, our session was only a little more than half full.
After going to the temple we went to "a great and spacious building". The National Cathedral is huge and it is beautiful. I gotta say I think it rivals some of the european cathedrals, and yes I have been to some european cathedrals.
After taking Mom and Dad to the cathedral I took them to the campus and they were impressed. Then for the rest of the week I ignored them and went to school and Cassie went to work, except for Thursday Mom and Cassie drug Dad to a quilt show in Penn. Unfortunately, I had to go to shool. Darn the luck. So who's coming out next?

Ma & Pa visit

Well Mom and Dad have come and gone, to my house anyway and I just thought I would share with you all some pictures of what we did while they were here. The first day Mom got here at 5:00 and I had to go pick her up from the airport, in the middle of rush hour traffic (I'll have to thank Elinor for that one). Then Dad was supposed to arrive at 11:30 pm (his own fault) but I got a call at 10:30 saying he was going to be late (Mother Nature's fault) so we, meaning Dad and I finally got home about 2:00 am. The next day was Sept 1, which was Mom and Dad's 35 year anniversary. So we took Mom and Dad to the zoo. Incidentally, that was the same thing Cass and I did for our anniversary this year. So with no further ado, here are some pictures of Mom and Dad at the zoo.

It was a nice 95 (that is degrees and humidity) at the zoo, but they have these nice misters to keep people cool.
No this is not Mom and Dad in the zoo.
This is Thai Shan, he is the baby Panda that was born at the zoo two years ago. He is still only about 1/2 as big as his parents but he is so much fun to watch. We spent quite some time watching him play and wander around in his little area. Here he is just chillin' in the tree.
Just like all babies Thai Shan is still learning to climb and move around, exploring his environment. Sometimes watching him try to get up and down trees or other obstacles is quite funny. Like watching your parents try to program their VCR.
This is just a really nice shot of the cheetah that Dad took.